Players are getting a sneak peek at the new Hearthstone cards in this week’s Tavern Brawl mode. The Tavern Brawl mode was released back in June. It’s a timed event with rules that change every week. Sometimes it can be fun way for new or more casual players to play on a level playing field with others and see what some of the more powerful cards can do.
The new Hearthstone cards featured in this week’s Tavern Brawl are from the forthcoming expansion, The Grand Tournament. The expansion will be released on August 24 and it’s is a big one. It’s bringing 132 new cards, a new playing field, and new features.
The two new features are jousting and inspire. This week’s Tavern Brawl shows off these features as well as the new playing field. One player has a mage hero who uses inspire, while the other hero, a hunter, uses jousting. Players get a hero at random and don’t have any control over their decks.
Jousting involves each player drawing a card. The one that costs the most wins.
I played a couple of rounds to get a feel for the cards myself. I ended up with the hunter hero for the first couple of matches, so I had a lot of jousting cards. The way jousting works is pretty cool. Each player draws a card and the player with the one that costs the most will have something happen in their favor. Often a specific minion will get an upgrade like gaining taunt or charge. Other times the player will get an extra card or other benefit.
Once I got to play the mage, I had a better view of how inspire worked. Minions with inspire do a variety of things when players use their hero powers. Some of the more basic inspire effects involve gaining health or attack. Others will summon completely new minions.
I got to see a slew of the new cards after playing only a few matches and they all seem interesting to play in fun new ways. Now all we have to do is wait for August 24.
